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Survey Shows Critical Calls From Essential Businesses Being Missed Amid COVID-19 PandemicNORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark., May 6, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- First Orion, a leading provider of communication transparency solutions, today announced a new survey showing 87 percent rarely or never answer calls from unknown numbers. The unintended consequence during the COVID-19 pandemic is that essential businesses and service providers are struggling to reach customers with critical communications. To better understand the American experiences, First Orion surveyed 1,000 U.S. mobile phone users in the third week of April 2020 and found that critical calls are going unanswered, and citizens are suffering as a result. Over 75 percent of those surveyed missed an important call during the week, and just under a third of those surveyed agree that they are missing more calls more frequently now than before the COVID-19 crisis. After missing the important calls, 85 percent tried to return the calls, but half found it difficult. Nearly 5 percent became so frustrated that they gave up and went to the physical location, which could put them at risk of contracting COVID-19. Americans are understandably stressed about a myriad of issues during "shelter-in-place" orders across the country and are making more calls for information. To deal with increasing call volume, contact centers are now relying heavily on call-back solutions, yet calls from unknown numbers still go unanswered. One particular issue affecting nearly half of those surveyed (44%) is that the important missed calls are returned calls from a previous voicemail they left. When they try calling back again, over a third (35%) ended up leaving yet another voicemail, leading to a never-ending cycle of missed calls for many. Most missed critical calls fell into three categories: health, financial and work-related.
"It took over a decade, but the U.S. population has been collectively trained not to answer calls from unknown numbers," said Viki Zabala, Chief Marketing Officer at First Orion. "While this would typically be predictable behavior in normal times, today it translates into critically important calls not being answered." There are solutions to help organizations get calls answered. In response to a request by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the White House, First Orion has been working with other telecom service providers, such as Telo and Somos, to support the U.S. government's request to display caller ID instead of the telephone number for critical government-run Toll-Free hotlines, including the initial phone lines for COVID-19 test results ("Results Center"). In just the first few days, First Orion helped deliver thousands of COVID-19 test result calls and saw answer rates increase to over 70 percent. To learn more and enroll today, visit www.firstorion.com/inform-covid-19. First Orion's "Inform" programmable business caller ID solution enables businesses to correctly identify themselves to their customers when calling prior to answering. This ensures critical calls are answered the first time — eliminating the phone tag cycle or important calls being missed entirely. Many organizations already using First Orion Call Enhancement solutions have seen answer rates double. About First Orion Processing over 90 billion calls annually, First Orion powers communication transparency solutions for T-Mobile, Metro by T-Mobile, Boost Mobile, Sky, Virgin Mobile and Sprint Prepaid mobile networks along with PrivacyStar and other mobile apps. Established in 2008 and led by Charles Morgan (former Founder & CEO of Acxiom), First Orion is headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas, has offices in Seattle, London, and Dubai, and employs nearly 250 people globally. More at www.firstorion.com, @FirstOrionCorp or First Orion Blog. PrivacyStar, First Orion and Engage are trademarks of First Orion Corp. All registered or unregistered trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners. Media Contact:
View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/survey-shows-critical-calls-from-essential-businesses-being-missed-amid-covid-19-pandemic-301053804.html SOURCE First Orion |